It's all the Rage

Rating: 8/10 (3 March 2011)

Danny Boyle, after a productive stint in television, moved into feature films with the blackly funny Shallow Grave. A confident, terrifically assured crime caper, it established Boyle as an immensely promising new talent burning on the horizon. He followed this up with the grandslam of Trainspotting, a coarse, gritty insight into the surreal life of a drug addict. It was a trippy experience, and one that won it a well deserved cult audience.
The problem with making two impressive features in a row so early in your directing career is that you've set the bar so high for yourself. And when you make a film that doesn't scale the same heights, critics gather like jackals. And certainly since the twin hits of Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, Danny Boyle has proved a very hit and miss director.
After enjoying such unbridled success, Boyle plummeted to the opposite side of the spectrum. First there was A Life Less Ordinary, which only wound up baffling audiences. And then the nadir of Boyle's career, The Beach, which was quite possibly the worst film of the year 2000. The Beach is a film that could easily have torpedoed Boyle's career. And to make sure that didn't happen, Danny Boyle would have to come up with something special for his next film.
28 Days Later... isn't quite the classic it seems to think it is. And its not terribly original either. But it was a definite step in the right direction for Danny Boyle. It brought back to him many of the plaudits he had lost on The Beach. And it was the big hit he had been looking for. The one that put him firmly back on the playing field.
Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from a coma to find himself in a deserted hospital. He goes outside to an equally deserted London. It seems he's the only person left in the city. But he's not alone. While searching a local church, he barely escapes a ravenous, red-eyed mob. He gets rescued by Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark, and learns what's happened while he was out.
28 days ago, a group of animal rights activists tried to liberate chimps from a lab. What they didn't realise was the chimps were infected with a virus. When they contracted it, it induced in humans a state of permanent, murderous rage. It wasn't long before it swept the entire country. Only a few have managed to survive. When Mark succumbs and has to be killed, Jim and Selena team up with a father and daughter to reach Manchester, an apparent safe haven from the virus, without being killed or infected themselves.
28 Days Later... definitely sees Danny Boyle regain his stride. He tells a quite involving story of a man who wakes up to a world he no longer recognises. He does a fine job (particularly in the early scenes) of showing us a devastated London. The scenes with Cillian Murphy wandering the streets in almost complete silence are extremely eerie (although it is spoiled somewhat by the unnecessary soundtrack).
The way Danny Boyle shot these scenes is a story in itself. They had to wait until the early hours of the morning to get the proper look of a deserted London. And they could only hold up traffic for a few minutes at a time. Yet the way the camera encompasses the London landmarks, the overturned buses, trash blowing in the streets - it's all quite dazzling in its depth and clarity.
Danny Boyle also has a fine cast at hand. Cillian Murphy is perhaps a bit flat. By the time of Red Eye and Batman Begins, he'd polished his acting considerably. Here he's a bit introverted. He doesn't make a very convincing hero, especially in the second half when he's running around barechested with a rifle. Naomie Harris is much better. She gives a tough, determined performance that completely commands the picture. Yet she also shows signs of vulnerability, just as upset as anyone at the sad state of the world, hidden behind a cynical front.
Brendan Gleeson and Megan Burns are equally good as father and daughter Frank and Hannah. Gleeson plays Frank as an ordinary man trying to hold together in extraordinary circumstances. When he gets infected and knows he's about to turn on his daughter, his death is tragic and very affecting. Burns (who hasn't acted since) turns her slight woodenness towards a sad acceptance of what the world has become.
The second half is a bit more predictable. When they get to Manchester, they fall in with a group of troops (led by an excellent Christopher Eccleston) who have lured them there with promises of a safe place, when really they need women to repropagate the species. I managed to predict that long before the characters did, although Eccleston gives a beautifully judged performance of a soldier doing what he thinks is right for a better future. Even if it isn't.
Aside from a plot that's a bit linear, I was a bit disappointed by the ending. The film seems unsure of itself at the climax, as if Boyle and Alex Garland weren't sure where to take it next. The ending comes with a sudden abruptness that leaves everything unresolved. And the various endings that were filmed and storyboarded only confuses the issue further. 28 Days Later... pilfers a bit from The Day of the Triffids and Day of the Dead. And while it never adds anything original to the genre, Danny Boyle's kinesis makes 28 Days Later... a fairly scary world to look on. One I'm glad we don't live in.